


the monsters under your bed aren't worse than the monsters in it

by statuscrows



Series: Noncontober [8]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Excessive Drinking, M/M, Molestation, Sleep Paralysis, Spoilers, gintoki's fucked up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:20:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26917993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statuscrows/pseuds/statuscrows
Summary: Shoyo's been in a strange mood recently.
Relationships: Sakata Gintoki/Utsuro, Sakata Gintoki/Yoshida Shouyou
Series: Noncontober [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945621
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	the monsters under your bed aren't worse than the monsters in it

**Author's Note:**

> for noncontober day 10: drunk. and also uhhh happy birthday gintoki. sorry

Shoyo's been in a strange mood recently.

It's not like that never happens. Though he usually hid it well there were moments when Gintoki could tell Shoyo wasn't really all there, moments where his usual gentle smile vanished and his eyes went cold with something that Gintoki didn't really understand. He doesn't ask, though he sometimes wanted to. Shoyo never asked about _his_ life or the things he'd been through. In fact, he'd made it clear that it didn't matter what sometimes woke Gintoki up in the middle of the night, he was still Shoyo's student.

But because of the unspoken rule between them, Gintoki doesn't feel like it's his place to ask Shoyo what's wrong. If Shoyo just told him on his own he thinks he'd be willing to listen, to try to help in whatever way he could, but he doesn't think Shoyo will just offer. So he tries to stick closer to Shoyo and annoy him as much as possible. He starts a couple unscheduled fights with Takasugi and falls asleep in class when he can, which he hopes accomplishes its goal of distracting the man. It's difficult to tell. When Shoyo knows he's being observed his behavior is always perfectly normal

A couple days into this Gintoki wakes up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. On his way back he finds Shoyo sitting outside, seemingly just staring off into the night.

"Yo," he says.

Shoyo doesn't turn around immediately but something changes in his posture. His shoulders purposefully relax and he seems to start breathing, as though he wasn't before. When he does turn his face is set in its normal friendly smile. "You're up late, Gintoki."

"Just had to take a piss," he says. He sits down besides Shoyo on the ledge, letting his toes settle in the grass. He kind of wants to make the same comment back at Shoyo but this isn't the first time he's found the man up late. He doesn't think he's ever seen him sleep.

Next to Shoyo is an open bottle and a cup that's almost empty. Gintoki stares at them both before looking at Shoyo again.

"A gift from a donor," Shoyo says, smile relaxing slightly.

"Zura thinks samurai aren't supposed to drink."

"Sounds like Katsura thinks samurai shouldn't have fun."

Gintoki grins. "That's what _I_ said."

They sit there quietly for a while and Shoyo takes another sip of his drink.

"Can I try that?" Gintoki asks. With absolutely no fanfare, Shoyo hands him his cup. Gintoki takes a fairly large gulp and immediately wrinkles his nose. "Ugh, tastes like crap."

Shoyo laughs. "Yes, I suppose it would to you." That strange distant look comes over him again and he turns away.

Gintoki pinches his nose, like Shoyo does for him whenever he has to take any kind of medication, and knocks the rest of the drink back. He shudders and puts the empty cup down. "Yeah. Definitely tastes like shit."

"You probably shouldn't have done that," Shoyo says but he sounds genuinely amused instead of fake amused like he had earlier, so Gintoki doesn't regret it.

Gintoki shrugs. "You've had like the entire bottle."

" _I'm_ an adult, and unusually resistant to liquor."

"Eh, I basically used to eat trash," Gintoki says. "I'll probably be fine."

He _is_ fine. For the most part.

Maybe the things Shoyo say become a little funnier than usual, and maybe he suddenly doesn't care as much than Shoyo's in such a weird mood, but that's about all that happens. He isn't suddenly unable to control himself like some of the drunken idiots he's seen slumped outside bars, though Shoyo does have to remind him to lower his voice a couple times. Whenever Shoyo puts his cup down Gintoki steals a couple sips. He's sure Shoyo notices but he doesn't seem to care.

He wonders if Shoyo feels like he’s drinking with a friend or a colleague now, instead of a student. While he thinks Shoyo feel differently about him than he does the newer kids, he wishes he were old enough to understand him better.

After a while he does start to get pretty sleepy and winds up lying next to Shoyo on the mat. And then because Shoyo's thigh is in such a convenient location he pops his head down onto it.

"You're a surprisingly good drunk," Shoyo muses. The distance in his eyes hasn't entirely faded but he at least looks like he's enjoying himself, which is more than enough.

"Yeah, I'll make a great alcoholic one day," Gintoki mumbles sleepily.

Shoyo's laugh is the last thing he registers.

He sleeps, but he doesn't sleep deeply. He doesn't get to the point where he can dream but instead is somewhere above that, unable to move but vaguely aware of his body being touched, of vague noises and unusual sensations. Eventually he goes from this half-dream state to uneasy consciousness and realizes that he _is_ being touched; his yukata has been pushed up by his hips and his spread legs are draped over someone else's thighs. He feels soft hair tickling his face—that's the sensation that woke him—and he knows the familiar smell of it. He knows who it belongs to.

He tries to move then and realizes instantly that he can’t.

It doesn't happen often, but Gintoki has always had trouble sleeping, and this isn't entirely new to him. His entire body is still locked in sleep and refuses to move. He can't pull his yukata down or close his legs or scratch his face where long hair is tickling his cheek.

He can however open his eyes.

He's not surprised to see Shoyo, he knows how he smells, but he isn't prepared for having the cold, weight of Shoyo's gaze directed at him. Or at least his body. Shoyo isn't looking at his face and hasn't noticed that he's awake. His eyes instead are on Gintoki's body, his exposed cock which he's absentmindedly toying with.

Gintoki can feel it. Can feel his head swimming and nausea rolling in his gut. But he still can't move. And he's struck with this fear that even if he could he probably shouldn't, like he's sneaking across a lion's den and shouldn’t do anything to draw the sleeping beast's attention to himself.

That thought doesn't last him long however as he watches Shoyo suck two fingers into his mouth and then bring them down between his legs. At first he has no idea what Shoyo's doing but then he feels the tip of one finger probbing at his hole and his panic finally spills over.

" _Mm_ ," Gintoki whines, not quite able to form words yet. Shoyo's eyes linger on his ass for a moment before they sweep upwards to meet his stare. He expects his expression to go soft the way it always does when Gintoki catches him in a mood, or on those rare occasions when he has to comfort Gintoki, but Shoyo just stares at him.

He doesn't know how many people Shoyo has killed, or how old the man really is, but his eyes make Gintoki feel more insignificant than he's ever felt, like his body is nothing but an amalgam of meat that's hardly sentient to him.

Slowly, Shoyo draws his fingers away and pulls Gintoki's yukata down over his body. Though Gintoki still can't move he's aware that he's hard and there are wet patches along the skin of his chest where Shoyo's tongue must've been.

At last Shoyo smiles at him. "You're very kind, Gintoki," he says, but unlike the times he's said it in the past it sounds cruel and bitter, "be more mindful of who you extend that kindness to."

Shoyo carries him back to bed after that and tucks him into his futon between Katsura and Takasugi with the same level of care that he always does. It's a few more minutes before the paralysis completely wears off and at that point there's nothing really to do but try and fall asleep.

In the morning he has a headache and Shoyo cheerfully tells him that it's his own fault for getting drunk the previous night, as though he didn't enable it. Gintoki's had sleep paralysis before and seen strange things during it, even _felt_ strange things happening. That his monster that night would take on Shoyo's shape isn't strange when he had Shoyo on his mind.

Years later, when a shadow wearing Shoyo's face appears before him, and Utsuro looks at him with an expression that he's only ever seen in one long repressed nightmare, and Katsura admits that he'd also sensed something dark in Shoyo from time to time, Gintoki starts to accept that it may not have been a dream.

Only it doesn't really matter. There's no reason to talk about it. They know Utsuro is bad news. Gintoki doesn't need to add to it.

But sometimes, when he gets drunk he thinks about it, remembers his head swimming and the smell of Shoyo's breath with a clarity that alarms him. And this particular night, when he’s too drunk to get home and it’s so late that there’s no one to walk past the alley he’s collapsed in, he thinks about it until he can't really do anything but unzip his pants and wrap a fist around his cock.

Utsuro wasn't Shoyo, he tells himself uselessly, the back of his head rubbing against damp brick. He has a hard time believing it now that he knows he wasn't the only person to see it in him.

This isn't the first time he's jerked off thinking about his "dream" but it's the first time knowing for sure that it was real, that at one point in time Shoyo had wanted him. He didn't know if he'd wanted Gintoki specifically, he never saw Shoyo looking at him like that at any other time, or if he'd simply wanted to bury some dark part of himself in Gintoki. Because Gintoki had been available and so eager to help. The thought makes him shudder but doesn't make him any less hard.

It's simultaneously so much worse and so much better to know it's real.

It’s raining but he hardly cares when his skin feels so heated. As he strokes himself he wonders if Shoyo would have stopped if he hadn't woken up. His easy willingness to kill Gintoki when they fought must've meant that for all the good he did, how deeply he'd impacted all of their lives, he never really cared for them. So he wouldn't have stopped because of some moral reason like knowing it was wrong to touch a child this way.

Gintoki bites his fist as he works his cock faster.

He wonders how far Shoyo would've pushed him. He knows he's drunk and decides that's the only reason he's wondering so much about what would've happened if he'd just lain there silently and kept his eyes shut.

The alcohol, he decides, is the only reason he wishes he had.


End file.
